International Business Machines Corp said on Friday that it would allow only fully vaccinated U.S. employees to return to offices, which are set to open from Sept. 7, given the rapid spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19.

“We will still open many of our U.S. sites, where local clinical conditions allow, the week of Sept. 7. However, the reopenings will only be for fully vaccinated employees who choose to come into the office,” Chief Human Resources Officer Nickle LaMoreaux said in a memo sent to employees.

The resurgence of COVID-19 cases in the United States due to the Delta variant and the new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that requires fully vaccinated individuals to wear masks have led companies to change their plans on return to office, vaccinations and masking.

The technology firm also asked its employees to get fully vaccinated, joining other big techs to fight the spread of the virus.

Earlier on Thursday, Facebook Inc has pushed back its office return date for all U.S. and some international employees until January 2022, while AT&T Inc said it will require management employees to be vaccinated before entering a work location.

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AT&T Inc said on Thursday it will require management employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before entering a work location, amid growing concerns about the Delta variant of the virus.

A spokesperson for the U.S. wireless carrier said the company will begin discussions with labor unions “to jointly align on a path forward for our union-represented employees.”

The company said it will make exceptions for employees who can not receive the vaccine for medical or other reasons.

The move comes as other major companies including Facebook are also requiring vaccinations for U.S. employees before they step into offices.

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Mozilla has added a new privacy-enhancing feature to its Firefox browser with its Firefox 91 update. The Enhanced Cookie Clearing feature will let you erase all the cookies and the “supercookies” stored on your system, claims the company.

With this feature enabled in Firefox’s Strict mode, the browser, when asked to forget a certain website, will send all the data about a website, including the cookies and other data to the website’s “cookie jar” from where it can be deleted.

For this feature to work, you need to have Strict Tracking Protection enabled. After you enable the strict tracking, the Enhanced Cookie Clearing feature will be used whenever you want to clear data of a particular site you visited. If you wish to go a step further and delete all traces of the website from your browser, then you can go for the “Forget About This Site” option in the History menu.

It is not just the cookies from a certain website you visited. Mozilla claims that the “cross-site” content like the embed content (images, videos and scripts from other sites) can also read and write cookies and other site data. “Additionally, comfypants.com and mealkit.com embed a like button from facebook.com.”, sid the company in a blog post.

Mozilla claims that “Total Cookie Protection, built into Firefox, makes sure that facebook.com can’t use cookies to track you across websites. It does this by partitioning data storage into one cookie jar per website, rather than using one big jar for all of facebook.com’s storage. With Enhanced Cookie Clearing, if you clear site data for comfypants.com, the entire cookie jar is emptied, including any data facebook.com set while embedded in comfypants.com.”

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A U.S. judicial panel on Tuesday said that Texas‘ antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet’s Google would be moved to the Southern District of New York, where other similar cases would also be heard.

Google had asked that the case, which was filed against it by Texas and other states, be combined with similar cases in U.S. District Court for Northern California.

Texas opposed the move, and the request prompted federal legislation aimed at allowing state attorneys general to choose the venue for their lawsuits.

The panel, which recently heard arguments on the proposed move, said that the Texas case and others involve “common questions of fact, and that centralization in the Southern District of New York will serve the convenience of the parties and witnesses.”

Later the panel says: “We further find that inclusion of the State of Texas action in this MDL (multi-district litigation) is appropriate.”

Google welcomed the panel’s decision, saying it would lead to “just and efficient litigation.”

“We look forward to demonstrating how our advertising business competes fiercely and fairly to the benefit of publishers, advertisers and consumers,” a Google spokeswoman said in an email statement.

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Lego Marvel ‘Superheroes’ is coming to the Nintendo Switch on October 5. The game lets you become a part of a good versus evil story set in the Marvel Universe. With Lego Marvel Super Heroes, you can play as one of your favourite superheroes from the comic book universe.

There are more than 100 playable characters to unlock in the game the likes of which include Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Hawkeye, Deadpool etc. Players will also get a chance to travel to iconic locations in the Marvel Universe like the Stark Tower, home of billionaire Tony Stark, the X-Mansion, home of the mutants known as the X-Men, Asteroid M and Asgard, where Odin, Thor’s father rules.

The game on Nintendo Switch also comes with the following DLC packs:

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Super Pack

The Super Pack DLC adds more superheroes and supervillains to the game, and also adds new vehicles and races. Some of the notable additions include the Dark Phoenix, Beta Ray Bill the Winter Soldier, Symbiote Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Falcon.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Asgard Pack

The Asgard Pack adds more characters to the game like Sif, the shield-maiden of Asgard, and Jane Foster, Thor’s love interest. You can either choose to fight on the side of Odin and the Warriors Three: Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral or join the evil side and play as Malekith, the leader of the dark elves and Kurse, the Big Lego Figure.

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Boeing said it was assessing multiple dates this month for the launch of its CST-100 Starliner space capsule to the International Space Station.

The company last week postponed the capsule’s much awaited launch after discovering a glitch in its propulsion system valves during pre-launch checks.

Boeing said on Monday it fixed problems over the weekend on more of its 13 CST-100 Starliner propulsion system valves and inspections showed no signs of damage or external corrosion.

“Seven of the 13 valves are now operating as designed, with inspection and remediation of the remaining affected valves to be performed in the days ahead,” the company said.

Boeing said it was working with NASA and United Launch Alliance, its partnership with Lockheed Martin Corp, to confirm launch dates when the spacecraft is ready.

The CST-100 Starliner will take people to and from low-earth orbit and Boeing has said a manned mission will take place no earlier than December, as it competes with Elon Musk‘s SpaceX to be the first to return NASA astronauts to the space station from U.S. soil in nearly a decade.

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Pokemon Go’s Space-themed Ultra Unlock event for 2021 has begun. The event brings with it new Ultra Unlock research quests, new missions for the month and the chance to find and catch rare Pokemons through egg hatches, spawning or raid battles. The event will end on August 17.

Some of the quests that you can do as part of the Space Ultra Unlock event are Catch 10 Pokemon (Munna encounter), make 5 nice throws (Clefairy encounter), and transfer 5 Pokemon (7x Nanab Berry). Upon completion of the quests, the rewards include 10x Pokeball, 484 XP and 5x Ultra Ball.

Another set of quests consists of these tasks: Catch 10 Pokemon (8x Razz Berry), use 5 Razz Berries to help catch Pokemon (Lunatone encounter) and use 5 Nanab Berries to help catch Pokemon (Solrock encounter). The completion rewards include 10x Pinap Berry, 484 XP and 5x Ultra Ball. There are more quests available.

The Ultra Unlock 2021 Part 2 comes with Space Event Field Research, which, unlike the timed special quest, aren’t immediately available. These are event-exclusive missions.

Some of the missions included with this event are: Catch 15 Pokemon: Staryu encounter (shiny chance), make 5 nice curveball throws: Lunatone or Staryu encounter (shiny chance), make 7 great curveball throws: Shellos encounter (West or East variant at random), spin 10 Pokestops or Gyms: 10x Pokeball and transfer 5 Pokemon: 3x Pinap Berry.

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The bipartisan infrastructure bill has left cryptocurrency players fuming in the US.

San Francisco: As the US goes after the unregulated cryptocurrency market, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has for the first time charged two crypto industry executives of illegally selling over $30 million of securities in unregistered offerings.

The two executives from the Blockchain Credit Partners company used the Ethereum blockchain to sell cryptocurrencies to investors while misleading them about the company’s profitability, reports The Verge.

“Full and honest disclosure remains the cornerstone of our securities laws — no matter what technologies are used to offer and sell those securities,” Gurbir S. Grewal, SEC Enforcement Division director, said in a statement.

“This allows investors to make informed decisions and prevents issuers from misleading the public about business operations,” he added.

The charges came as the Joe Biden government is working on new regulations for the decentralised finance and cryptocurrency markets.

The bipartisan infrastructure bill has left cryptocurrency players fuming in the US.

The administration intends to pay for $28 billion of its planned infrastructure spending by tightening tax compliance within the historically under-regulated arena of digital currency, reports TechCrunch.

Crypto companies like Square, Coinbase, Ribbit Capital and others have warned of “financial surveillance” and unintended impacts for cryptocurrency miners and developers.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future have also criticised the bill.

It’s, however, unclear how cryptocurrency will fare under the new infrastructure bill.

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Internet search giant Google has expanded its home devices lineup in US with the launch of its next-generation Nest Cams and Doorbell. The Google Nest Cam (battery) is company’s first outdoor/indoor battery-powered camera and is priced at $179.99. Along with this, it also launched Google Nest Doorbell (battery), which is also the first battery-powered doorbell from the company and is priced $179.99. Besides these, there’s Google Nest Cam with floodlight, company’s first connected floodlight camera launched at $279.99 and lastly, the second-generation Google Nest Cam (wired), a wired indoor camera and company’s most affordable Nest Cam ever which is priced at $99.99.

Google Nest products availability

The new battery-powered Nest Cam and Nest Doorbell are available for preorder today and will go on sale on August 24. As for the Nest Cam with floodlight and the new wired indoor Nest Cam, they are “coming soon.”

Google says that its new cameras and doorbell can detect important events that happen in and around the home, including alerts for people, animals and vehicles because they “process what they see on-device, which means more relevant notifications and added privacy and security.”

Nest’s new camera and doorbell allow users to install Nest Cam and Nest Doorbell anywhere in the home where there’s a power outlet or existing doorbell wires. It comes with the option of both wire-free design and option to wire the devices.

These new camera systems are fully integrated with the Google Home app. Buyers also have the option to purchase a Nest Aware subscription to extend your event video history from three hours to 30 or 60 days, gain advanced features like familiar face detection and get continuous 24/7 video history on wired Nest Cams with Nest Aware Plus.

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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission criticized Facebook Inc on Thursday for making “misleading claims” to explain why it had disabled the accounts of researchers studying political ads on the social media platform.

Facebook said on Tuesday it had cut off the personal accounts and access of the New York University researchers because of concerns about other users’ privacy.

Facebook had initially said that the decision was made out of a need for the social media giant to live up to a consent agreement with the Federal Trade Commission.

But Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne later told Wired that the consent decree was not a reason to disable the researchers’ accounts. Instead, the decree required the creation of rules for a privacy program, which is what he said the researchers had violated.

Laura Edelson, one of the researchers, denied any wrongdoing, Wired said.

The FTC posted a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying that it was “inaccurate” that the company’s actions were required under the 2019 consent decree.

“While I appreciate that Facebook has now corrected the record, I am disappointed by how your company has conducted itself in this matter,” wrote Sam Levine, the FTC’s acting director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

“The FTC received no notice that Facebook would be publicly invoking our consent decree to justify terminating academic research earlier this week.”

Facebook paid a record-setting $5 billion fine to resolve the FTC probe into its privacy practices and boosted safeguards on user data.

“While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy – much less the FTC consent order – as a pretext to advance other aims,” he wrote.

Separately, the FTC sued Facebook in December for allegedly violating antitrust law. That complaint was dismissed and the agency has an Aug. 19 deadline to refile it.

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